Saturday, March 30, 2013

I am so lucky to have such amazing technology as a kindergarten teacher. Lake Myra really takes the technology initiative seriously. My Kindergarten classroom has 4 computers, a smart board, my lap top, ipad, projector and elmo projector. I love when i can incorporate technology with lessons that directly apply to my curriculum.

Students love using the computers and smart board. That is always the math or literacy center they want to be at. My students are engaged and love the interactivity technology provides.

Here students are using starfall.com to listen to rhyming books. This website highlights the words as it reads them to you. Highlighting the words helps students recognize sight words, and longer words. Also, this helps students see different rhyming words. Just another exposure to text!

Here students are using tumble books. This is a great resource Lake Myra has purchased so our students can hear the author read their book. The expression is great in the Robert Munsch series!

Lately, we have been using the SMART board for a math center. Students can play addition games or like in these pictures the students are playing a game that related to the hundreds chart. You have to guess where a number is on the chart and click the box before the time runs out. The goal is to find as many numbers as possible. At first students were clicking all over the place; but after practice and using the hundreds chart I provided, they were able to navigate a hundreds chart pretty well! :)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

In my classroom, I try and find different ways for students to remember their sight words. This past week before track out, I was brave and got out rice in pans. I gave the students cards with their sight words on them and they wrote their sight words in the colored rice. This is a fun, sensory stimulating way to teach sight words. You can also work on letters and numbers.

This activity can be done easily at home! It is a great, fun way to continue learning over track out! :)

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

This quarter we have started Math Centers and they are really going well. We are working on number recognition, adding, word problems, shapes and one to one correspondence In my class we work on many of these skills in a mini lesson and 15 minute centers.

One of our centers is creating a puzzle with number words, dots and numbers. The students create a rectangular puzzle with the numbers 0-10. Another center the students work on is number order. In this center we use puzzles with pictures that show the number 1-10 or 11-20. Each student will get a puzzle and put it together based on the picture as well as number order.

Also in Math we have been working on 1:1 correspondence. The students flip over a number card 1-20 and they have to find the matching card that has the same amount of dots. This particular activity was used on Valentines Day with hearts.

Last week all of the teachers at Lake Myra worked so hard to create centers for Family Literacy Night. This is a night for all of the families to come in and participate with their children at the Literacy centers! (We also had a book fair, free pizza, face painting and a magician. In Kindergarten we worked on sight words because it is recommended that each student knows 25 sight words by the end of this quarter.

Our Centers included Play Dough Sight Words and Slap Jack Sight Words. With Play Dough Sight Words we printed all of the 25 Dolch Sight Words and laminated them into play dough mats.

Slap Jack Sight Words is a game that is played with students to gain quick recognition of sight words. We wrote down sight words onto paper and cut them out into the shape of hands. Then we laminated the hand prints. When we said a word the students would have to find it and slap the word. The first student to slap the words gets to keep it. If students are just slapping any word and not reading then they have to give a card back! This is a great game to increase sight word recognition and really forces the students to focus and read the word before slapping it!

Last week was Read Across America Week and our class had a ton of fun
dressing up and participating in our school spirit week! We had book character
day, flip flop fashion disaster, pajama day, sports day, spirit day.

Each day we read in the classroom and at home so that we could add up our
minutes for our team! We had a compitition between our principal (Team Go Dog
Go) and vice principal (Team Cat in the Hat). Team Cat in the Hat came back on
the last day and beat Team Go Dog Go! I am so proud of how much my class read
at school and at home! Keep Reading!! :)

Here are some pictures from Pajama Day:

Here are some more pictures from Read Across America Week. These are from book character day:

Saturday, March 9, 2013

I wanted to start a blog to begin to document my story as a teacher. So I guess
I will start with the beginning.. I completedgraduate school in May 2010 when I graduated from St. John
Fisher College with my Masters in Education (1-6). With my masters came two
certifications. I took an extra class in college to gain two more certifications. I am now a
certified teacher in grades 1-6 general edu, and special edu. I am also
certified birth -2nd grade general edu and special edu.

I have secured a full
time teaching position at Lake Myra Elementary school in Wendell, NC. I am a
KINDERGARTEN TEACHER and i LOVE it! I work in a great school with a lot of
support from other teachers, Literacy and Math coaches and administration. I
couldn't ask for a better first job!

On my blog I will be posting the happenings
of my classroom. We work daily on common core objectives and I hope to be able
to share some ideas on my blog!